The 2017 edition of the Outdoor in Friedrichshafen was the most impressive out of all 8a have visited. There is a strong feeling that the climbing industry is doing well and that everyone wants to have a bite of the cake and it is especially about shoes for different segments. Both Black Diamond and Wild Country launched their shoe line and most of the the established shoe producers presented new models with a greater focus on comfortable gym shoes, female shoes as well as more extreme softer shoes. Just on Outdoor there were about a dozen shoe brands presented. A logical next step for the manufacturers would probably be to continue this trend of comfort to produce a hybrid shoe in between a normal running and a climbing shoe that you never take off during the whole gym session including coffee break. For the kids, La Sportiva has already done it with their climbing sandals for kids where you also get stickers and Ondra cartoons in a package. Many producers also presented their new or updated semi-locking belay device. In practice, this means safer and possibly also cheaper semi-locking device that will push traditional belay gear out of the market. When it comes to innovations, the scary Escaper from Beal where you can first rapell and then pull down the full 60 meter length of your rope was most extreme. Other than that Edelrid did, as always, present some cool new things. Tendon has a new technology TeFIX which permanently bonds the sheath to the core. We will present more details later of everything that was interesting at Outdoor.

New River Gorge 4: 2016-2017 Season from Aaron Schneider on Vimeo.

Alex Megos does his third 9a+ during just the last week by Jungle Boogie in Cëûse. Amazingly he did it on his first day on after having tried it for 15 minutes three years ago. "The video of Stefano Ghisolfi motivated me to try this route again after 3 years! One of the goals of my trip is done!" (c) Liam Lonsdale. Vertical-Life has just presented a new digital version of the Céüse guidebook by Laurent Girousse, Arnaud Petit and Rolland Marie.

Chris Sharma reports on Instagram that he has established a 30 m DWS 8b+ ground up which he says is one of the best routes of his life. (c) Giancola Foto "The Pont d'Arc is an absolute dream line. It's hard to believe something like this even exists! After 4 days trying from the ground up and taking some big falls I was finally able to link to through the arch. It tops out at around 30 meters on the far side of the arch (that you can't see in the photo). A perfect line, on perfect rock in a perfect location. It's hard to get more perfect haha." Wow, but how dangerous was this? You know I have a family so I would never do anything really dangerous. I did jump of several times to check the landing and the impact at most up from probably 25 meters.

Bavona action part.2 from Giuliano Cameroni on Vimeo.

BLUE ICE III from Christian Welkhammer on Vimeo.

Mt.Penteli, Sector Alana from George Papageorgiou on Vimeo.

Neverending Story - Magic Wood from Max Räuber on Vimeo.